The subject of a ballot question that Memphis voters will see at their polling places Nov. 6, instant runoff voting — also known as ranked choice voting — has been at the center of controversy throughout the weeks leading up to the election.

Voters will be asked whether they're for or against repealing the system, which was approved 10 years ago but never implemented.

But what is instant runoff voting exactly? How does it work and what’s at stake? The Commercial Appeal looked at five key points, drawing on Shelby County election commission data and examples from other regions where instant runoff voting is in place.

Instant runoff voting is based on a system of ranking and redistribution

Although instant runoff voting was approved by more than 70 percent of Memphis voters in 2008, the system has never been implemented. It’s currently in place statewide in Maine and in various cities across the country, including Minneapolis, San Francisco and Santa Fe, New Mexico. And, on the other side of the globe, Australia has been practicing instant runoff voting for more than a century.

It’s a system that allows voters to choose their first, second and third choice candidates — though any voter is free to select only a first choice and call it a day.

If a candidate locks in a majority — 50 percent of all votes plus one — they win and the election is over. But if no candidate garners a majority, the runoff between them automatically begins.

First, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated. But the ballots of those who voted for them as a first choice still count — if those voters selected their second choice candidate.

That’s because the eliminated pool of votes is then redistributed to voters’ next favorite choices. This produces an important byproduct of the ranked choice system: it eliminates the "spoiler effect" in which voters fear that if they vote for a true first choice who may be unlikely to win, such as Ralph Nader in the 2000 election, their ballot will essentially be wasted.

A look at data from San Francisco’s June 2018 mayoral election shows the system at work.

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After an initial five rounds of eliminations, the first row in the chart above shows the share of votes each remaining candidate had. But, since no one candidate yet had 50 percent plus one vote, subsequent rounds of elimination took place. The votes for the candidate eliminated in the sixth round, Ellen Lee-Zhou, were redistributed to whomever those voters selected as their second choice. That’s why in the seventh round, the percentages of each of the remaining candidates grew. The process continued one more time from there, until the winner, London Breed, garnered a majority.

The 'instant' in instant runoff correlates to voter turnout

Votes in the San Francisco runoff were automatically processed over the course of a few days.

In Shelby County’s last municipal runoffs, in 2015, voters returned to the polls one month after the election. Data shows that turnout plummeted. Five different districts went into runoffs and in each, the number of voters who returned to the polls decreased dramatically, by between 67 to 83 percent.

The winner of District 4, for instance, was determined by 1,501 voters as opposed to the initial pool of 11,154.

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Instant runoff voting could dampen polarization

Voters in Maine adopted instant runoff voting following two consecutive terms under controversial Gov. Paul LePage, who came to office with less than 40 percent of the vote in 2010.

Under an instant runoff voting system, a candidate incapable of winning a majority, either outright as a first choice or as the preferred back-up, could never go on to govern. That simple fact changes the political landscape entirely, according to Benjamin Reilly, a political scientist who studies instant runoff voting at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, where a ranked-choice system has been in place for a century.

“Usually under ranked-choice voting, the winner is a centrist who can gain a strong first choice vote, but also pick up second and third choices from supporters of other candidates,” said Reilly.

“It acts as a prophylactic against extremism in a political system, as it is almost impossible for polarizing candidates, even those with strong base support, to pick up enough second choice votes to get elected,” said Reilly.

The Economist points out that this dynamic profoundly alters campaigning, forcing candidates to focus on policy. “It shifts incentives away from negative campaigning —because candidates are trying not just to turn out their base, but also to win as many second- and third-choice votes as possible,” The Economist noted.

Debate surrounds the cost of implementing instant runoff voting

In 2008, when Memphis voters first approved instant runoff voting, a $250,000 annual savings estimate, attributed to the city's Director of the Division of Finance at the time, Roland McElrath, was included on the ballot. Now, City Council Attorney Allan Wade calls the figure "nonsense" because he says it was based off an overestimate of what elections cost, the Memphis Business Journal reported.

A new, detailed breakdown of estimated costs have recently been made public, though they are not easy to find, tucked into a lawsuit the citizen's group Save IRV recently filed against the city. An exhibit included within the lawsuit details election cost figures from Shelby County Election Commission Administrator Linda Phillips.

According to Phillips, the cost of running a typical runoff election, which requires voters to return to the polls, is at least $132,000 per district.

On the other hand, the cost of implementing an instant runoff system — involving machine programming, paper printing costs, manual labor and workers to educate voters on how the system works at the polls — breaks down to approximately $25,500 per district. Phillips' estimates, included in Save IRV's lawsuit, Sugarmon et al. v City of Memphis, describe $2,000 per district in printing costs, $6,000 per district in labor hours to sort ballots and another $5,000 per district to count them. Citywide, implementing instant run off would entail an additional $48,000 in voter education and $40,000 in programming election equipment.

Another back and forth on costs has developed between Shelby County Election Commission officials and a former City Council member, who said instant runoffs will require new computers to the tune of $6.3 million. But Robert Meyers, Shelby County Election Commission chairman, has said new computers must be purchased soon regardless. As first reported by The CA columnist Ryan Poe:

Shelby County Election Commission chairman Robert Meyers says he'd never heard that amount, but confirmed that the commission is planning to buy machines soon. However, he said that was due to the vendor announcing it will cease maintenance on current machines in the next few years. The commission is hoping to buy machines with a function that works with instant runoffs, saving staff from counting ballots by hand, but new machines aren't necessary for instant runoffs, he said.

Instant runoff voting requires voter education

Among the costs of implementing instant runoff voting in Memphis, Phillips cited $48,000 total to fund two additional workers at each of the city's 120 precincts to focus on voter education and assistance.

Concern over confusion dominates much of the criticism directed at instant runoff voting. The League of Women Voters, which supports the adoption of instant runoff voting, has pointed out voter education is pivotal.

"We don’t want uninformed people coming to exercise their right and responsibility to have a bad experience, or to leave without voting properly," the group posted on its website, in a list of pros and cons. And on the extreme end of opposition, the group Yes2Repeal, backed by a slew of current City Council members and state representatives, likens an instant runoff voting ballot to modern day voter suppression because, they say, it sows confusion.

"I can’t conceive individuals voting for three candidates in one race," City Council member Jamita Swearengen told the Memphis Daily News last year.

In its analysis of instant runoff voting, the media organization Vox found one example in which a lack of voter education led to problems, in Minneapolis, but that overall, mass confusion has not been an issue.

If voters in poorer neighborhoods do turn out, they may be slightly less likely to take full advantage of their options and name three candidates, and they are slightly more likely to "spoil" their ballots by marking them wrong. At least, this is what happened in Minneapolis. However, more comprehensive evidence across multiple cities suggests that voters are not confused.